AI Changes for monster/henchmen 10/31..for the worse?

No, that's not what people are talking about at all. Most of this thread is about AI affecting monks and MM's.

BTW, Anet is obviously doing some serious AI tweaking. It isn't a stretch to imagine that they will be flexible here. Didn't they implement some major AI change and undo it in the past? I kinda seem to remember this happening.

Yet another helpful contribution to the problem at hand.

No one pointed a gun to your head and forced you to read this. You did it on your free will knowing damn well where this thread is going. Care to explain what type of strategy a melee class can change to that will help NOT getting wiped?

As far as I can tell, there is no strategy unless you go solo.

You can take team-mates like Rangers with Pin Down, or Elementalists with Water Magic or Ward Against Melee.

I also resent the idea that a forum is not the place to voice my opinions on the whining that seems to be taking place with a large amount of the playerbase. Where else am I going to do it? Edit a page on GuildWiki?

If you read my post, you'll see I wasn't specifically criticising the thread or the original post, nor was I criticising EVERY player - just a portion of the playerbase.

spellcasting is officially dead.
tanking is dead, warriors/any sort of tank with high natural defense are mute at this point, the enemy will NEVER target them.

the only thing we're left with are spellcasters, who will do the damage, and also have to tank the damage (which they cannot do both at the same time) so doing anything without a live group of 8 people (no hench) is mute at this point also.

hence, if it's late at night, and you're bored, you might as well watch a movie or play a boardgame, you'll still be as far in guild wars as you would have had you played the whole night with not many people on, since henching now will prove fruitless.

Lol well there's always Dolyak Signet for everyone.

Something very unusual is happening for me.....

After a year and a half of play of playing very frequently (almost daily) I haven't played a mission/quest in over 3 days.
I camped my toon to get a pumpkin head and that's it...

I don't like the AI right now, too many problems with it.... i thought it was only monsters but others are now reporting henchies too.

Well I hope that anet can fix it and implement what they intended and that it works for the general population.

In the meantime I'm off to play some other well deserving games to fill the void....
(For those of you who'll say : go play PVP - PVP holds no interest for me.
For those of you who'll say : go play WOW - I have played WOW but didn't really like it much. Mostly due to the cartoon graphics and endless grind with little or no story)

PS I'll be watching the forums and hope to see a "YAY! they fixed it" thread shortly....coz I truly luv this game!

TES4 gets all my time now, this new AI issue makes me glad that I cancelled my game and put my money in Knights of the Nine

This is really bad...mainly because of the addition of the dervish. They always target the casters and has ALOT of AoE attacks, and since henchies always bunch up, you guess what happens? When you get more toward the end game, its harder and harder to play with henchies against the lvl 24 and higher mobs, especially if you are not playing as a backline class like monk that knows everything that's going on and can direct a retreat before its too late.

They did something, I was in Domain of Fear today..well I got raped so bad it wasn't even funny. Why? There are a bunch of eles there, they targeted me most of the time, but when I had Mind Freeze on trying to get closer to run..THE HENCHIES RAN RIGHT UP NEXT TO ME AND GOT DEEP FREEZED AND ICE SPIKES..SPIKED. They haven't done that before today, so I can't go back to that place anymore..not worth it.

Also that Madness titans whatever their name is, Dervish enemies, just totally go around me and target henchies and rape them. Before they only targeted me, it is very unfun to play when high damage enemies go to your casters. It's not easy to control yourself and your henchies at same time.

Didn't they implement some drastic AI change that they yanked shortly after? I seem to remember this.

I think it's unfair for people to be critical of those complaining about the new (and clunky) AI when we have--since the inception of Guild Wars--been treated to what has otherwise been an untouched AI code.. and a very workable one, I might add.

Sure, changes were made with AoE--but this was more of a reactionary change. The monsters still followed their standard targetting schedule. However, when targetted with an AoE, they scattered--and I adapted. From that point on, I brought an AoE as a panic button for when things got nasty.

Beyond that, the AI code was somewhat predictable. People understand the AI considered a number of factors in choosing targets--damage taken, distance, armor class.. with enough skill and planning, it could be balanced. Hell, I've used terrain to mitigate aggro.

Now, though.

For a few days, every monster was auto-lock on a warrior, regardless of everything else happening.

I haven't stepped into PvE since the Halloween event began, but apparently now the situation is completely reversed.. ?

The skill use AI is a bit borked, as well. It's interesting to see the henchies get locked between using two skills, unsure of which one to use, but determined to use both.

Kiting, as well, with henchies, no longer works--'cause when you move, they all stop what they're doing and move, too.

And did they always auto-attack the target I have selected--but not actually called?

Here's hoping for some feedback from Anet as to what they're trying to do, 'cause things are real confusing right now. I would like to know if this is supposed to be the new rule, or simply a very awkward exception.

I'm glad I finished the game yesterday. Now I can solo farm/explore while they mess around with the AI and pretty much be uneffected.

Oi, that quest to get to Kamadan from LA was fun. Thinking hell, it can't be too hard, I go in with my warrior, a monk friend, and henches. Quickly found that tanking is not possible, the mobs avoid me despite proper aggro tactics. Even after being knocked down a few times and with the monk a mile away, they still attack her and ignore me completely. Soloing it ftw. Can only imagine what rougher areas with tougher/more spawns are like now. PvP ftw 'til AI is fixed. <_<

I thought I was doing something wrong on a quest called "The troubled keeper" I have tried it a few times, it is a masters quest and have gotten to the 6th wave everytime. Until tonight... I cant even make it past the first. The mobs go straight for the quest guy your suppose to protect and wipe him out in seconds.

This change explains a lot, and did they do a similar change a few days ago? Cause my henches decided not to work then, and now its worse....much much worse.

Roll back please, Im sick of getting my ass handed to me, I try to control my aggro by kiting or backing up and the warriors stop attacking and the casters charge in. I dont want this to be another stupid MMORPG where I have to LFG for hours on end.

Henchmen are the best thing guildwars has going for itself, if they don't function guildwars is dead.

I just tested a few different mobs out with playing my monk as the healer to see how things are changing with all these updates. Only had Tahlkora as the other monk, and she was protection. I fought beetles, Kourna soldiers, and margonites. Yes the casters get targeted more, but I think it's only one factor in the whole problem here.

The key was flagging the map for my henchmen so I could actually kite things around. If the map's not flagged, the henchmen will follow your even slightest movement instead of fighting. This causes problems when the warriors and other melee classes do have the aggro but then lose it cause they rather be close to you.

Henchmen are kiting very well though. I didn't have an issue with that.

The enemy AI has taken very strongly to spiking. I died at one point when I tested taking on two groups at once. It didn't help that there was a boss that can do 200+ damage in a single hit, hehe. The moment I was rezzed I got hit with 5 Stone Daggers and 2 other earth spells. I died again almost instantly. Even in other moments I was getting spiked pretty strongly, especially from Margonite paragons and mesmers. When the mobs did turn on me and target me, it wasn't just one. It was at least 3 or 4. I'd go from 100% life to 20% life in a second or two. This was also the case against a necro Kourna boss and his crew.

I even tested fighting Margonites in the Realm of Fear area that has the zone effect that makes skills cost 40% more energy. That place isn't an easy place to monk at. The biggest problem I have is being the only player and being the monk. To actually target and find the next target that should be taken down distracts me from focusing on healing my team. And letting the henchmen pick the targets themselves is just really bad.

A good thing though is that the henchmen are now targeting what I was. Before it didn't matter how many times I called the target, I just couldn't get them to stay focused once I switched back to healing the team.

For the most part I think the changes are logical and were needed. The AI before was TOO easy. In this I mean that it was ridiculous that everything went after Koss as if he was holding a gear back in the old days of farming SF. And I should not be able to run into a group of Margonites first with my henchies and not get attacked once. That's how it was. Of course, having to kite more doesn't make the game more fun...

I tested out the MM too. I still find it buggy with minions not attacking. My biggest problem is the Flesh Golem. He takes 5-10 seconds to realize there is a battle going on and another 5-10 seconds to realize I am on the run after the battle is done.

Just my observations from a quick testing of different situations. Obviously these could be isolated cases and just my bad/good luck, and maybe I just like more pressure while playing a monk, but I still found using heroes and henchmen playable.

There are still plenty of serious problems in the AI, don't get me wrong, but this thread was more about addressing the AI going after casters now, to which I think won't be so bad once other problems are fixed. Though if it means less use of heroes and henchmen and more room in parties for players, then I love this update I'm just willing to wait and see how it will get fixed/changed (if at all) instead of just panicking that it's the end of the game like so many have done with past updates and whatnot.

(BTW, it's 3am, so I really hope this post made sense lol)

3 Sapphire Djinn (dervishes) + 1 Ruby Djinn (elementalist with Searing Heat)
=
Brutal battle before the update, insane battle after the update

The problem I think boils down to the fact that Elonian monsters have better skillsets than those from other campaigns. In previous campaigns, it wasn't so bad if your backline was attacked. However, with Elonian monsters evidencing heavy edenial, choking gas/interrupts and other assorted pvp-related insanity (not to mention freshly powered up elementalists), it is going to be more and more of a problem when facing more difficult areas that are just only part of the storyline.

If you're someone who wants to map areas, then you need henchmen and heroes. If you want to explore on your own, then you need henchmen and heroes.

If henchmen and heroes die repeatedly to normal groups, you're not going to get anywhere. This update is totally BS. The problem is having your backline get shutdown, whereas before you could control your aggro. If the warrior can never hold any aggro at all, then all you have to do is watch your monks get edenied, distracted and shut down. Once your monks die, the rest of your party will follow shortly after.

This is not mentioning the fact that DP is consistently being acquired, making future encounters even more hazardous.



EDIT: TO KHA

I've been discussing this with a friend of mine as well. He also hasn't noticed too much a difference, like you. I think the issue is that you guys are both monking.

When you are a frontline character (my main character is a warrior), you depend on your backline to stay up - and you really can't help them unless you are using shouts. Even then, versus a spell heavy group, a warrior can just flail around and direct the damage.

The problem is at the slightest hint of trouble the monks start dropping. No matter how you look at it henchmen monks cannot tank multiple level 24 dervishes and warriors, on top of ele damage and assorted edenial/hexes. If you want to do something that's not directly related to game progression, you might as well kiss it goodbye, because as any other class you really won't have the ability to, later on.

Hmm i just started withnessing some strange hench behavior to :P
My MM hero who was always getting targeted, hostile minions and he would die seconds after being ressed.
before this update i did notice that healer henchies sometimes used a skill and canceled it until they were out of energy :|

Since this last update, I've been having a hard time controlling, in particular, my monk heros.

I was in the second to last NF mission earlier with a human monk, 2 warriors, myself (ele) and 1 other person that I don't remember. We had 3 heros with us, 1 of them was my Tahlkora. All of us died, except 1 warrior, the human monk, and another monk hero. The 1 monk hero got res on the other warrior, and one of them got res on my Tahlkora. Problem was, everybody was a bit spaced out. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get Tahlkora to effectively do anything at all while being dead. She would run toward the warrior to heal it, start casting the spell and run away cancelling in in the process. Or, she would start casting 1 spell, then interrupt it herself to start casting another and then stop casting that and be at about 4 energy or so. Repeat process for about 3 minutes. If I tried to tell her to res, she'd either start casting it and cancel it herself halfway through, or get power drained.

I've also noticed the earth henchie continually trying to cast a spell over and over and over. It's like the heal sig clicky when you move while casting it. She does it repeatedly, about 10 or 15 times, but it's not happening because she's moving. She's quite stationary while this happens.

It would be nice to have some official word on this undocumented major change, but I trust Anet to tweak all this eventually. Including heroes casting spells and cancelling them right away... it's not really helpful if the ele hero starts a battle with half energy just because he canceled Rodgort's invocation twice, thus not triggering the attument(s) energy return.....

AOE changes...thank you Anet.

They do not work as stated ont he web site at all lol.

All the enemy seem to group together on one target and my Ele Hero just nukes them and they DO NOT run...back to the good old days for eles.

Only enermy char type is a problem, thats the enemy monks, you hit them once and they run off in the direction of another group, so you dont follow and they come back and you start again....Unless you surround him with your 3 hero's and 4 henchman, then it's over in seconds.